As a boy in Oklahoma my family
would spend a lot of time on the creeks and rivers. As a small
boy my Dad would take me by the hand and would wade out to the
sandbar in the streams. The swift water was dark and often
over my head, but how I loved and enjoyed the water, because
of my father's hand. My father is dead, and if asked, "What do
you miss about your Dad?" it would be his
hand.
All of us today do have
a hand we can hold on to. It is the hand of God. We can
remember the words of the Psalms: "If I take the wings of
the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even
there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold
me" (139:9,10).
Today we must
take hold of the right thing in our life, for holding on to
the wrong thing will end in death. The story is told of a
sailor on one of the sailing ships of the last century. He
tumbled out of the rigging. In his fall he caught with both
hands a rope; and observers said, he is saved! But the rope
itself had no fastening, and he fell further and faster as the
rope played out, till he struck the deck a mangled mass. A man
may attempt to save himself by will-power; but what if the
will itself has no hold on
God!
Proverbs 16:25 says,
"There is a way that seemeth right unto a man; but the end
thereof are the ways of
death."
~J.
F. Carter
